War Photographer's Notebook

Chapter 559
While Wei Ran was waiting, the Berber guide got out of the tent sleepily, and then followed Saleh into the armored pickup parked not far away.Seeing this, Wei Ran immediately put down the oatmeal porridge he just drank and followed.

Under Saleh's signal, he started the car that had just turned off again, and with Edward's hesitant expression on his face, he drove to a flat sandy field that was 50 meters away from the camp.

Although this undisguised defense made Mr. Edward helpless, there was nothing he could do about it.

In the armored pickup truck, Saleh also took out an old-looking satellite phone from his dirty and tattered pocket, found out a set of numbers and dialed them, and handed them to the Berber wizard.

After the latter took the satellite phone, he immediately opened the door and walked towards the rear of the car. Saleh also called Wei Ran to get off the car and walked towards the front of the car.

"I just shared your doubts with what he said"

Saleh turned his back to the direction of the camp, lit a cigarette slowly and continued, "But he doesn't know, so he wants to ask their patriarch."

"Have those Berbers used satellite phones?" Wei Ran asked curiously after declining the other party's cigarettes.

"if not?"

Saleh glanced at Wei Ran like a fool, "Should I write them a letter and put a stamp on it, and then check if there is a mailbox nearby?"

"When I didn't say it," Wei Ran replied indifferently. He was already used to teasing like this in Hongqi Forest Farm. In comparison, Saleh was already very polite.

The two of them didn't have to wait long before the Berber guide hung up the phone, walked over with a yawn, and chatted with Saleh.

"His patriarch said that when there were still many nomadic tribes in the desert, whenever there was a new moon, many merchant tribes would come here to conduct some transactions."

"Why here?" Wei Ran continued to ask.

"First of all, there's water here."

Saleh pointed to the east side of the mountain range, "There is a spring that is not too big. On the other hand, the mountain is big enough to not only serve as a landmark, but also provide shelter for all camel teams, even if they encounter The sandstorm can also escape unharmed."

"Because of this?"

"Of course more than that"

Saleh communicated with the guide standing next to him for a few more words before continuing to explain, "The most important reason is that this place is about the same distance from several large nomadic tribes at that time, whether it is from the west of Libya Those who sell turquoise here from the desert in the east, buy turquoise from the Nile River in the east, sell dried fish and cloth by the way, or sell salt bricks and tobacco from Sudan in the south, all of them will use this place as a trade The turning point."

Before he finished speaking, the Berber guide also said something that Wei Ran couldn't understand.

Hearing this, Saleh nodded and continued, "Just now he said that another reason is that this place is far enough away from the oasis. Anyone who comes here to trade will not only not have to pay taxes to the people living in the oasis, but also don't have to worry about the oasis people knowing the source of their goods.

Of course, because of this reason, there was a time when many activities of selling stolen goods were held here.Whether it is smuggled weapons and unique products, or beautiful women caught from various places, or even stolen, robbed, and cheated all kinds of stolen goods that are not easy to sell, and even some cultural relics whose authenticity is unknown, they will all be here trade. "

"Is this trade between tribes still going on?" Wei Ran asked more and more curiously.

"How is it possible, this place has long been abandoned."

Saleh flicked the cigarette butt in his hand, "According to their tribal chief, there were no camel caravans coming here about 40 years ago."

This time, without waiting for Wei Ran to ask, he took the initiative to explain, "The reason why this place is abandoned is that apart from the fact that there are fewer and fewer nomadic tribes, the most important thing is that many people died here."

"A lot of people died?"

Wei Ran's heart trembled, and he suddenly remembered the record in the metal book about Edward's grandfather Felix. After the war, the old Yinbi used to hire oil field guards for a long time to massacre the nomadic tribes in the desert. Retaliation is coming.

"A lot of people died"

Saleh nodded, "During a trade fair about 40 years ago, the spring on the east side of the mountain suddenly exploded. Since then, this place has been gradually abandoned."

"Explosion?" Wei Ran's brows twitched.

"According to the guide's description, the explosion was very loud. It not only destroyed the spring, but also directly killed many people. Even those who were outside the range of the explosion did not hide. When saving people in the past, many fell to the ground, some covered their throats, some covered their eyes, and some vomited or twitched and fell to the ground and never got up again."

"Sarin?" Wei Ran asked in an almost affirmative tone.

Saleh nodded, "It should be sarin. Not only is it easy to make, but it's also highly toxic, and it can even be easily dissolved in water."

Hearing what Saleh said, Wei Ran was sure that the bald old guy in front of him probably also possessed a lot of outdated but still surprisingly lethal "cold knowledge".

"Has the murderer been found?" Wei Ran asked after a moment of silence.

"no"

Saleh shook his head and said, "Not many people survived that time, and no one knows why the explosion happened. But..."

Speaking of this, Saleh has turned around and looked in Edward's direction, the meaning of which is self-evident.

"It's really a poisonous snake in the desert."

Wei Ran couldn't help sighing, except for Edward's grandfather Felix, he really couldn't think of any idle psychopath who would come to such a ghostly place to poison, and the purpose was just to blow up some nomadic tribes living in the desert.

It is true that the camel caravan stripped him naked and sold him as goods, but it is undeniable that if the tribe hadn't discovered Felix, he might not have had the chance to leave the desert alive.

But that old Yinbi didn't concentrate on looking for his gold, why did he always bully the nomadic tribe?
Wei Ran muttered something to himself, but in an instant he wanted to understand the cause and effect.I'm afraid that he didn't retaliate because he was sold as goods, but because he wanted to find the camel caravan that found him in the desert but failed, so he did those things.

As for what to do to find the camel caravan, he naturally wanted to go back to the location where he was found at that time, because only there was it possible for him to use the false azimuth of "north west 29 degrees" to reverse and accurately find the original location. The buried gold.

"Victor, what are you thinking?" Seeing Wei Ran's frowning, Saleh asked curiously.

"nothing"

Wei Ran did not express his guess, but instead asked, "I remember you asked your son Soliman to give me a note."

"What is it like?"

Saleh asked dissatisfiedly, "It's just what happened last night, Victor, are you a goldfish with only 7 seconds of memory? You don't even remember what happened last night?"

More than one night has passed for me.
Wei Ran muttered to himself, and continued to ask with his usual expression, "You said that Mr. Edward is very familiar with the terrain around here?"

“Really very familiar”

Saleh also did not pursue the inappropriateness of Wei Ran's statement, and lowered his voice slightly, "I chatted with him for a long time yesterday, and I found that he is very familiar with the terrain near the border between the two countries, and even knows the distribution of some oases around. That's why I suspected that he might have something to do with the sarin explosion that happened here."

"This matter is not the focus of my investigation"

Wei Ran waved his hand and didn't delve into this matter, "Okay, I should go back to have breakfast, and chat with Mr. Edward by the way."

"One more thing." Saleh stopped Wei Ran with a smile.

"What's the matter?" Wei Ran stopped in his tracks because he didn't know.

"When we go back, you have to send those two little foxes back to them."

Saleh said dumbfounded, "Those two little guys are the pets of the youngest grandson of the tribal chief. When we were guests in their camp, that little guy put his pets in your car."

"Isn't it a gift for me?" Wei Ran asked in astonishment.

"They never gave me a gift, how could they give you a gift?"

Saleh said impatiently, "Anyway, you should remember to send them back when the time comes. The grandson of the old patriarch has been crying all day. Our guide said that if we don't send those two little foxes Going back, their patriarch might have a heart attack."

"Berber children are also worried"

Wei Ran grinned, and said as he walked into the car, "Then send it back, but I don't care about taking care of those two little things these two days."

"Don't bother you"

Saleh beckoned the Berber guide standing in the distance to get on the car quickly, and at the same time did not forget to say, "Just let him take care of those two little beasts later."

When the guide sat still, Wei Ran immediately turned the car around and drove back to the camp with a cloud of smoke.

After a leisurely breakfast, everyone moved the tent to the shadow on the north side of the mountain range under Saleh's call, and the Berber guide even took the opportunity to take the two little foxes away, and used Two strips of cloth tied them to the tent.

Too lazy to care about these stingy Berbers, Wei Ran took two opened coconuts and approached the bored Mr. Edward.

"Have you found any valuable clues?" Edward asked enthusiastically, taking the coconut with the straw inserted.

"It's just a rough guess"

Wei Ran sat down opposite Edward, took a sip of the cold coconut juice, and then said slowly, "Mr. Edward, according to my speculation, your grandfather can be captured here, certainly not like Charlotte What Mr.'s parents experienced was just getting lost in the desert. After all, here is more than [-] kilometers away from the main battlefield in North Africa. Even if you bring a Polish donkey here, it is impossible to run south after getting lost. Far."

"So?" Edward asked noncommittally.

"Since he was captured here, the most likely reason may be that the plane crashed, and only the plane can bring him so far away from the battlefield."

Wei Ran pointed to the mountain behind him, looked into the other person's eyes and continued, "On the other hand, the only ones who can capture your grandfather Mr. Laws here are nomadic tribes in the desert."

Hearing this, Mr. Edward did not show any expression that Wei Ran expected to see, as if he not only knew this long ago, but also knew that Wei Ran would definitely make such a guess.

"Is there anything else?" Edward asked flatly.

"That's all for now"

Wei Ran spread his hands, pretending to be helpless and said, "I want to go back and check some World War II files to see if the Germans in the North African battlefield opened a military route from the Mediterranean coast to the south, or ask the local nomadic tribes to see There is no record of your grandfather.

But obviously, either way, it might be a long job.So Mr. Edward, I'm afraid we'll have to stay in this desert for a long time. "

I don't know which sentence of Wei Ran moved Edward, after a short silence, he suddenly said "North by West 29 degrees"!
"What did you say?" Wei Ran asked in astonishment.

"29 degrees west by north"

Mr. Edward repeated again, "This is the only clue my grandfather had to find his colleague."

"Where is 29 degrees north by west?" Wei Ran asked in a feigned surprise, never asking why the other party didn't say it until this time.

"Wait a mininute"

After speaking, Edward got into his own tent, and not long after, he came out with a map of North Africa, unfolded it and spread it on the folding table.

"I'm sorry Victor, I only came up with these key clues at this time."

Edward said with an apologetic face, "Before this, I was not optimistic about your investigation ability, and I didn't trust you, if not."

"It's ok"

Wei Ran waved his hand without waiting for the other party to finish speaking, "After all, we are cooperating for the first time. I can understand this kind of thing, and it is not the first time I have met. This is very normal, so let's talk about business."

"thank you for understanding"

After Edward finished speaking, he pointed to a conspicuous red line on the map and said, "Just like your speculation just now, he was indeed lost in this desert at the same time as him because of an airplane accident.

According to him, the navigator on that plane was seriously injured at that time, and he only told him to walk out of the desert and find the nearest airport along 29 degrees west by north.

Also, that airport is actually the one you talked about in the Berber tribe, but unfortunately, when he got here, he was captured. As for the British who captured him, it is still like you said Captured by local nomadic tribes, my grandfather never mentioned it. "

It's strange for him to be able to say that he was stripped of his clothes and sold as goods.Wei Ran was too lazy to pay attention to the discrepancy between the story in Edward's mouth and the historical truth, but instead focused all his attention on the red line drawn on the map.

One end of this red line is located in the upper left corner of the map. Not surprisingly, this should be the airport.But at the other end, it stretches all the way to the border in southern Sudan before stopping.

It was obvious that Felix, of course, perhaps after the war, should have been called "Rouse Old Yinbi Berger."No matter what the name of the old Yin coin is, just from this overextended red line, he knows that he doesn't know the exact location of the plane's forced landing.

With the cover of his trousers pocket, Wei Ran took out the MK3 compass from the British Army of World War II that he had just obtained from the metal book and started measuring.

It is true that there is an included angle of 29 degrees between this line and true south and true north, but before breakfast he compared the azimuth relationship between the two coordinates provided by the metal book and the airport.

According to the measurement at that time, no matter the location of the airport and which set of coordinate points provided by the metal book were used as a connection line, there was an angle of at least 35 degrees between them and the true north and the south!
Wait, right south and right north?

Wei Ran looked at the old-fashioned compass pressing the map, and then looked at the map again, he already had a guess in his heart that made his heart beat faster.

Calmly put the compass into his pocket and put it in the metal book, Wei Ran pointed to the map on the table and asked, "Mr. Edward, this is indeed a very important and valuable clue. Can you take this map away and study it carefully?"

"Yes, of course."

Edward nodded happily, and then reminded, "However, we have carefully searched in the desert along this line, and we have found all the way to northern Sudan, but we have not found my grandfather's colleague and the plane that died at the time. s plane."

"At least let me try"

Wei Ran had carefully folded the map while speaking, got up and walked to the armored pickup truck not far away, without giving Edward a chance to speak, he started the car again, drove directly out of the shadow of the mountain, and found a place that could be seen by the camp. He stopped where he saw it.

After adjusting the temperature of the car's air conditioner to a comfortable temperature, Wei Ran did not open the map that looked old, but took out his satellite phone and started to inquire about the magnetic declination of his current location!
Sure enough, the magnetic declination here is a little over four degrees easterly.Turning on the satellite map of the mobile phone, Wei Ran marked the location of the airport on the map provided by Edward, and then added the two coordinate points provided by the metal book again.

Just as he guessed, the angle between the line between one of the points and the airport and the true north and the south is exactly equal to the "29 degrees west by north" plus the local magnetic declination!
Considering the change of magnetic declination over time, this angle error is only less than two degrees!
What is magnetic declination?
Simply put, the north pointed by the compass is not the true north, but a certain angle.And with the passage of time, this included angle is also undergoing subtle changes.

Even some toilet arguments that advocate the reversal of the earth's magnetic poles in a few years' time will trigger the end of the world, most of them are based on the time change of magnetic declination, and they are randomly exaggerated and concocted by patting the back of the head.

These geographical knowledge naturally come from the topography and surveying and mapping courses of Hongqi Forest Farm, and the application of magnetic declination is more extensive than its popularity.

Not to mention, in World War II when there was no GPS navigation, regardless of the navigator of the aircraft or the navy on the warship, the magnetic declination is one of the important data to ensure that they will not get lost.

In other words, Morris, the navigator at that time, certainly did not forget to calculate the magnetic declination, but deliberately, deliberately did not calculate the magnetic declination!
This is only a five-degree deviation, enlarged to a distance of about 300 kilometers. At the end, the distance deviation between them and their destination will not exceed 20 kilometers at all.But don't forget, before and after the prospector named Leon was killed, Morris also directed the two of Felix to walk a long distance along the true north direction.

After that storm, Morris directed Felix along a direction of 29 degrees west by north, apparently testing him in a false direction.

However, before he completely trusted Felix and added the nearly 5-degree magnetic declination to the forward direction, the latter hastily exposed his true nature due to the lack of fresh water reserves!
In addition, after being captured by the camel team and driving blindfolded for several days, Felix wanted to find the location where the gold was buried by reversing "29 degrees north by west". Perhaps it would be better to throw shoes in this vast desert The possibility of determining the direction is higher.

"Thanks to Hongqi Forest Farm for teaching such a useful thing!"

Wei Ran murmured to himself, the value of this magnetic declination is not low, at least he can already determine which of these two sets of coordinates is the location where the gold is buried.

If those two sets of coordinates represent the plane and gold respectively, what is left now is how to explain the problem of the Junker 52 transport plane.And his inspiration came from the side-by-side sand beams blown out by the wind outside the car window.

There is no doubt that since the crash of the Junker 52 plane, there have been countless sandstorms in this vast desert.

With the manic wind-handling action, that plane would be fine if it was just buried in sand, but what if it wasn't?Will the repeated sandstorms blow it to move slowly in the desert?
The answer is obvious, otherwise, there would not be a distance of 15 kilometers between the two sets of coordinate points.

The distance of 15 kilometers seems exaggerated, but this is the result of more than 70 years. On average, it only moves about 200 meters per year.Don’t worry too much. It is estimated that a huge sandstorm that lasts for a day or two can easily complete the annual KPI target of 200 meters.

After figuring out the key points, Wei Ran carefully folded the map while sighing.There is no doubt that the survival after the forced landing in 1941 was a failure.

If Felix, prospector Leon, and navigator Morris can open their hearts and cooperate, the chances of them taking out the desert are actually very high.

If they could trust each other from the beginning, if Morris pointed in the right direction from the beginning, if Leon didn't have so many doubts, if Felix could hold back those crooked thoughts, their speed might be much faster. You can also save a lot on the way you go.

But in the face of complicated people's hearts, those "ifs" are nothing but ridiculous and unrealistic assumptions.

Leon eventually died of his suspicion and impulsiveness, and Morris eventually died of the direction he was in charge of guiding. Even Felix, the only one who survived, could never forget the gold that he cared about all his life.

But think about it the other way around, are all three of them wrong?

It seems that there is no such thing, no matter Leon's violent attack or the hand of navigator Morris until his death, or even the selfish Felix's painful killer, the reason is nothing more than wanting to make people feel happy in this area. Just survive in the desert of despair.

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(End of this chapter)